Majority of Palestinians Want Hamas in New Government

Palestinians at the site of a destroyed police car after it was hit by an Israeli air strike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 7, 2024. Photo by Atia Mohammed/Flash90 Photo by Atia Mohammed/Flash90

Almost 60% of Palestinians said they saw the ‘return of Hamas’ in Gaza as the preferred outcome for the conflict.

By JNS

Close to two-thirds of Palestinians in Gaza, Judea and Samaria prefer for Hamas terrorists to be part of, or even lead, a Palestinian governing body that would control the Strip after the current war with Israel concludes, according to a new Arab opinion poll published over the weekend.

The Ramallah-based Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) polling firm surveyed 704 Palestinian adults between Nov. 27 and Dec. 2. (The margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, AWRAD said.)

According to the poll, 47% of Palestinians say they would put their trust in a government of “national unity” that would include Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, which currently governs swaths of Judea and Samaria, as well as Hamas, the terror group that ruled Gaza until it was destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces in recent months.

Meanwhile, 17% of the surveyed Palestinians told AWRAD they favor a return to the situation in which Gaza is ruled solely by Hamas terrorists.

In Judea and Samaria, respondents showed significantly more support for Hamas than for the Western-backed P.A., with 25% expressing support for the Islamist terrorist organization, compared to just 10% for the P.A.

Hamas led the bloody terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, during which 1,200 people were murdered, thousands more were wounded and over 250 innocents were taken as hostages to the Strip.

Asked about possible P.A. presidential candidates if Ramallah would call its first vote in almost 19 years, Marwan Barghouti, a convicted terrorist murderer affiliated with Fatah serving multiple life sentences in Israel, received the most support of all possible candidates for P.A. chief.

In June, the Palestinians’ satisfaction with Hamas’s performance in the war against Israel reached its highest point since the Oct. 7 massacre, while support for the Palestinian Authority and Fatah plummeted.

When asked by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research to rate the performance of various actors during the war, Hamas took the lead with 75% satisfaction, up five percentage points since March.

The June 12 opinion poll recorded a slight drop in support for the Hamas-led massacre. Two-thirds declared Hamas was “correct” in launching the attack, down by four percentage points compared to three months prior.

Fifty-one percent said they believed that Hamas is “the most deserving” of leading the Palestinian people, up from 49% in March. Meanwhile, 16% of Palestinian Arabs believed Abbas’s Fatah was the most deserving.

Almost 60% of Palestinians said they saw the “return of Hamas” in Gaza as the preferred outcome for the conflict, followed by 25% that preferred a “new P.A. under an elected president, parliament and government.”

The Biden administration wants the P.A. to assume control of Gaza after the completion of Israel’s military operation against Hamas. Jerusalem vehemently rejects that due to Ramallah’s overt support for terrorism.

The U.S. State Department in December 2023 refused to rule out the possibility of Hamas terrorists retaining power or joining a Palestinian Authority-led governing body for the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria.

“Palestinians’ voices and aspirations must be at the center of post-crisis governance in Gaza, unified with the West Bank under the P.A.,” a U.S. government spokesperson told JNS, adding, “Ultimately, the future of Palestinian leadership is a question for the Palestinian people.”